Little things we've noticed

[Oscarfan]

Isn't that kind of the joke? He's singing about being a dancer and you don't see his feet? The puppetry sells the illusion.

 

[D'Snowth]

I wasn't aware it was meant to be a joke, I just always thought of it as a standard production number.

 

[MWoO]

I wasn't aware it was meant to be a joke, I just always thought of it as a standard production number.

He later shows Kermit dancing with Gene Kelly so obviously it was not a technical limitation thing. It's a joke. It's a subtle joke, but still a joke.

I'm sure in the writers meeting someone said "Let's have Kermit sing Happy Feet and tap dance" and one of the others went "Ok, how do you want to make his legs move?" and Jim just says, dead serious "No... there will be no frogs legs".

 

[Grumpo]

Yep. I think it was intended as a trick, a sleight of hand, the mastery of art -- to see if he can make us feel Kermit tap dancing without ever showing his legs.

 

[minor muppetz]

I wasn't aware it was meant to be a joke, I just always thought of it as a standard production number.

I didn't notice that that was the joke when I was a kid (not until I saw the joke explained online), was confused by Statler and Waldorf's reaction on audio releases ("on the show that wasn't funny, but on a record it doesn't make sense"). I thought the humor came from the fact that it showed multiple Kermit's (I also thought the scene in TMM with two Kermit's was supposed to be funny).

In fact in that episode, it's followed by a rare audience shot that, as far as I know, wasn't used again in any other episode (when most audience shots were reused in mutliple episodes) and a quick Statler and Waldorf scene that's just them cheering (and Waldorf being heard "that's a great song" quietly under all the cheering) as opposed to making a joke or insult. I guess they were going all out on the joke.

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently, I've noticed that the images on the back covers of the 1994 releases of Hey Cinderella and The Frog Prince seem to replace backgrounds with a plain color. Took a long time for me to really notice, but I was looking at the images on the back of Hey Cinderella and noticed the humans in plain-colored backgrounds, only the scenes didn't have plain-colored backgrounds (the sets had different colors and designs on their walls). I also didn't notice until last week that King Goshposh doesn't have his cigar in that image (probably photoshopped out). Speaking of that, for years I thought he had his cigar in his mouth in every scene, but noticed last week that he actually doesn't have his cigar in his last scene.

I find it interesting that the back cover has small photos of King Goshposh and Featherstone, I guess they didn't have any useable photos of them together. Also, it's a shame that the back cover doesn't have any photos of Splurge, when these two videos seem to have images of every important character (though there's also no pictures of the wicked stepmother). After all, did they really need to put pictures of Featherstone on the packaging of both Hey Cinderella and The Frog Prince (where he's arguably not as important as he was in Hey Cinderella, I doubt many would make their buying decisions based solely on whether they knew Featherstone was in it)?

There's one scene in Hey Cinderella where Rufus is in full shot running and jumping. For years I thought it was a marionette, the movements seem more like marionette movements. Jim Henson:The Works says that he was played by a real dog in one scene, but I wondered if that was a mistake. But as I watch it now, he runs from inside the house to out the door, a roof in the way as he leaves the house. It would have been hard to pull that off if it were a marionette (I assume), and they wouldn't have really had the technology to just add the top part of the front of the house in post production.

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently, I watched the 1994 VHS release of Hey Cinderella, which has a short promo for The Frog Prince. However, the promo is just a picture of the video box with the announcer briefly mentioning this (I suspect The Frog Prince 1994 VHS did the same for Hey Cinderella - then I watched the opening previews on YouTube and saw that I am right). I wonder why they didn't show clips from the two specials in these promos (for Hey Cinderella, did they want to avoid clips of King Goshposh with his cigar? Though I think they could have just left him out).

I also find it interesting how on the back of both 1994 VHS tapes, it says "Jim Henson Video brought you The Muppet Movie and The Muppet Christmas Carol..." I wonder if those were the labels top sellers. It's as if they expect people to pick these up because of what else JHV put out, when the Henson company obviously brought us all these and casual fans were probably getting them because they liked the Muppets, not because they liked the video label (which didn't include any non-Henson stuff). And yet both releases include promos for The Great Muppet Caper, the one movie released by the label that was not mentioned there.

I'm curious about sales of the Jim Henson Video releases. I know they sold well, but there are some curiosities. Like, they put out three Muppet Babies videos at once, then another came out for Valentines Day, and then some more came out as part of the Pre-School Collection. The first four Fraggle Rock videos came out at once, then another came in time for the Christmas season, and no more were released. The two It's the Muppets compilations came out at once, but they never put out any more. Only one proper video release of The Muppet Show came out during the label's run. At least the Sing-Alongs series was spread out during the line's run, and the releases of various specials were also spread out. Several videos were put out in 1993 and 1994 (I think '94 had slightly less videos), then 1995 didn't put out many videos outside of the Pre-School Collection (I think A Muppet Family Christmas is the only one), then 1996 brought us our last few Jim Henson Video releases.

 

[D'Snowth]

Of the original Muppet movies, GMC seems to be the most expository - to the point that even Lady Holiday lampshades this when she's hiring Piggy.

 

[cjd874]

I've realized that Jim Henson used two basic voices for his Muppet Show characters: a mellow voice for Kermit, the Swedish Chef and Link Hogthrob; and a more gravelly voice for Rowlf, Waldorf, Dr. Teeth and the Newsman.

While the other performers had more diverse voices for their characters (Frank with Miss Piggy and Animal, Richard with Sweetums and Beaker, and Jerry with just about every Muppet he performed), Jim only relied on slight variations on those two voices...but boy, did he make it work!

 

[D'Snowth]

I disagree with that assessment ever-so-slightly, because Frank often seemed to rely on a variation of his Bert/Fozzie voice - especially whenever he'd perform AMs on SS.